L’Oreal USA spends more than a billion dollars annually on measured media, and as it has moved money rapidly into digital media in recent years, most of that targets consumers evaluating products they already know about.

But the “Zombie Boy” viral video campaign for one of the smallest of the company’s 23 brands — Dermablend professional skincare and cosmetics — is showing the company can also go the low-budget route to generate awareness for little-known and new products. “Zombie Boy” Rick Genest generated 5.7 million views in its first 10 days in late October 2011. The video also has generated more than 200 million media impressions, including being featured on the Thomson Reuters video billboard on Times Square.